Duo get prison for $3M elder swindle

Doris Benoit spent decades cleaning houses and working in a hat factory to save money for her retirement.

After her husband died in early 2009, Benoit went to Kissimmee attorney Linda Vasquez Littlefield and her husband, Ross Littlefield, to set up a trust to protect the couple's nest egg.

Today, Benoit, 85, of St. Cloud lives on Social Security and Medicaid. The $91,000 she and her husband, a car salesman, scraped together was misappropriated by the Littlefields, who were sentenced to federal prison Thursday and ordered to pay $2.9 million in restitution to 26 victims.

"When you prey on the weak and the elderly and the uneducated and take their money from them, you're no better than child predators," said Benoit's daughter, Shirley Knox, 65, of Sutton, Mass. "They're vultures."

Several victims testified — some tearfully — about the devastation their families faced after entrusting their money to the Littlefields' J&N Foundation.

Although the families implored U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway to impose the maximum sentence of 10 years, she sentenced Ross Littlefield, 49, to four years and his ex-wife, a former lawyer known as Linda Vasquez, to five years.

The judge said the punishment offered the possibility that the former couple eventually could make payments toward the $2,888,418.05 they owe the victims.

Widow Phyllis Greenlaw, 66, of Haines City doubts that she'll see a penny. Her late husband, Eugene, worked for 47 years and the couple lived frugally to save $318,000 for retirement — the largest amount lost by any of the victims.

For a time, they received falsified quarterly statements mailed by Ross Littlefield, the foundation's trustee, whose Facebook page listed "greed is good" as a favorite quote.

They also agreed to give Vasquez, 41, power of attorney and entrust her to pay their taxes. The result: Greenlaw is $80,000 in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, which has a lien on her home, her lawyer, Dana Y. Moore of Winter Haven testified.

"If they put them away for 50 years it still wouldn't ease my pain," Greenlaw said.

Before they were sentenced, Littlefield and Vasquez apologized and appeared to blame each other.

In a 24-page court filing, Littlefield said he is a high-school dropout who formerly worked in the construction industry and took direction from his ex-wife. The document was accompanied by two dozen letters of support from friends, family and business associates.

Vasquez's attorney, Rick Jancha of Orlando, said Littlefield controlled Vasquez, who he said has mental-health problems. She agreed to be disbarred in 2010 after misappropriating the life savings of other elderly investors in the J&N Foundation pooled trust.

The purpose of the trust was to shelter investors' assets while maintaining their Medicaid eligibility. Money placed in the trust could legally be used for expenses such as a car or a mortgage or to pay a caregiver.

Families said the couple assured them that money left in the trust after the deaths of the elderly investors would be returned to their heirs. In fact, trust paperwork shows that leftover money would be retained by the trust.

"We put our trust in them," Knox said.

In a plea agreement, Littlefield and Vasquez admitted defrauding "vulnerable clients" to fund their other businesses, buy real estate, make car payments and finance an extravagant lifestyle.

Vasquez was released Aug. 20 from state prison, where she served a two-year sentence for bilking an elderly Osceola County couple out of their life savings and using it to buy property, a timeshare in Mexico and three luxury vehicles. She will be on probation for 13 years.

Littlefield was sentenced to five years of probation in that case.

Sixteen investors or their estates were reimbursed more than $400,000 in the state case, documents show. But nothing was left to distribute in the federal case.

A downtown Kissimmee building the former couple bought for $950,000 went into foreclosure, and a BMW was sold for a few thousand dollars that paid for the services of a receiver, Moore said.

Jancha asked that Littlefield be allowed to surrender to federal marshals later, but the victims objected and the judge ordered him taken into custody immediately. Two of his adult daughters burst into tears as he was being led away.

The judge granted Vasquez's request to be imprisoned in the Houston area where her family lives.

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